Even Cats Die
by Adam Kadmon
Summary: The scientist and woman agreed. The mother inside her could not.


Even Cats Die

Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion.

/\/\/\/\

Ritsuko met Isaac on her thirteenth birthday. Her mother forgot the date and covered with an impromptu day trip to Grandma Akagi's home out in the boonies. She was a proud cat lady and her house smelled accordingly. Ritsuko never minded. It was a diverting change from old coffee and bad perfume.

They arrived to find a mother cat nursing her litter on the screened-in porch. Afternoon sunlight drifted across the floor in long planks. The mother cat was sprawled in one of them, her litter a squirming pile of fur fighting to nurse.

One small kitten was pushed from a meal and tumbled backwards, head over tail. It mewed weakly. Ritsuko bent down to scratch its ears with a fingernail. The kitten did not recoil. Ritsuko smiled.

"Ah, he likes you," Grandma said from a rocking chair, reliably trying to force animals on friends and family. "Why not take him home with you?"

"Like hell," Naoko said. "My house is not a shelter."

"One cat does not a shelter make. It'll be good for her. Responsibility and all." Still no sale. She opted for guilt instead. "Think of it as a birthday present."

Ritsuko stayed out of the old argument, but failed to keep the hope from her eyes. Her mother's face twisted up like a raisin.

"Fine," Naoko muttered, eyeing the kitten like a puddle of vomit. "What? It's obvious you want the little fleabag. You can have it. But you're taking care of it."

Ritsuko scratched the kitten's ears again. It mewed, searching her finger for food. She tried hard not to fall in love immediately.

/\/\/\/\

Isaac was a black shorthaired cat with a white belly and paws. Deep emerald eyes shone under too-big kitten ears. He was a bold adventurer inside, but skittish of the world beyond the front door. When he wasn't sleeping he was on alert for playtime and lacked any restraint, resulting in a steady stream of destroyed shoes and lazily guarded laundry. Naoko ordered her to control the little beast.

Ritsuko's knowledge of feline maintenance was almost entirely secondhand. She enjoyed gathering information from a disparate number of sources and then conducting experiments to sort out what data was effective and what was obsolete. Trial seven determined Isaac liked string toys as opposed to feather toys. Trial sixteen and several Band-Aids concluded he did not enjoy being brushed on his stomach. Trial thirty-two cemented his love of sliced ham.

Ritsuko basically had the run of the house anyways, her mother flitting between projects, only stopping back to confirm her daughter wasn't a dropout or dead. Most days she ate alone, keeping the TV tuned to news for company. It did not take Isaac long to figure out what she was doing at that long table by herself. Food, even more than playtime, was cause for single-minded focus. After repeatedly learning jumping on the dining room table was frowned upon, he sat by her chair and meowed at her. Despite being alone Ritsuko still felt disobedient giving him scraps off her plate. Logically, she knew it set bad precedent. But he looked so happy and cute eating out of her hand.

Naoko was not amused on the rare occasion she stayed for a full sit-down meal.

"Why is that fleabag yelling at me?"

Ritsuko, not daring to spoil Isaac with people food in front of her mother, shrugged. "Maybe he wants attention. Try petting him."

"I'm not touching something that cleans itself with its tongue."

They ate. Isaac meowed.

"Aren't you sick of that noisy beast yet?" Naoko asked.

Ritsuko swallowed her gut responses of "I love him" and "He's my friend." Her mother would only scoff. There was no room in the Real World for such human weaknesses.

"Providing care for another living being is an illuminating experience," she said instead.

"It certainly is."

/\/\/\/\

She bought a carrier for vet check-ups, a bed, a brush and toys for him with money she earned under the table at her mother's lab doing odd jobs like going on coffee runs, data entry and analytical composition for grad students. It was win-win as far as she was concerned. Those dead-enders got a passing grade thanks to her and she got a kitty.

A small hell broke loose when Naoko finally caught on but Ritsuko was seventeen by then, and possible ramifications were swept under the dual rugs of high school graduation and post-Second Impact anarchy.

Employment options were not lacking but she realized following her mother was the most pragmatic path. Naoko was on the cutting edge of science heralding in a new age for mankind. Her mother claimed she never cared about fame or fortune, but she was never shy about embracing the science journals that came sniffing out her various projects. That changed when she joined GEHIRN. Ritsuko's routine communiqué with her became guarded and her responses turned elusive, refusing her specifics. There was also an undercurrent of excitement alien to past messages. It was an enthusiasm above and separate to work.

She visited the lab in Hakone before she officially entered university. Her course was set, he mind was steeled. Ritsuko had her mother's blessing and would work to bolster the research within GEHIRN. The trip was an informal introduction to reaffirm her commitment and also acted as a teaser to whet her appetite.

The lab's façade was nothing special. Ritsuko tried not to be disappointed. After the vague assertions from her mother of how earth shattering her work was, she hoped for some indication beyond the post-modern entrance columns and manicured lawn. What could she expect from a literal hole in the ground.

She saw her mother waiting for her in the lobby. That was unexpected. She was smiling, wearing makeup and a skirt expected on someone well below her status and age.

Beside her was a man of confidence and authority who looked at Ritsuko without pretension or arrogance. He saw her purpose and accepted it unceremoniously. He ignored her efforts of careless femininity. He was not the confused children of grade school or the insecure boys at university. He was a man who commanded agreement. Here was the excitement underlying the letters.

Ritsuko approached. Her mother waved.

"This is the Director, Gendo Ikari," Naoko introduced.

/\/\/\/\

Ritsuko held Isaac the night of her mother's funeral. She did not cry.

/\/\/\/\

Isaac relocated with her to Tokyo-3. She decided to keep an apartment aboveground. The Geofront did not forbid pets but neither did it cater to them. Supplies were a commodity and humans took precedence. She furnished the apartment more for his comfort than her own.

Like the rest of her private life, Isaac became a sternly guarded secret. The less information the grunts possessed about her the easier it was to command them; she was the no-nonsense, killjoy Mistress of Science that demanded hot coffee around the clock, and those under her were reduced to faceless uniforms. It was lonely but it was safe.

Maya Ibuki refused that order. Ritsuko plucked her out of college based on her test scores and methodology, and her naïve accommodation sealed the deal. Maya's open enthusiasm for everything she did and said made her hesitate, but the positives outweighed the negatives.

Although the cavalier affection she showered felines with, regardless of company, was bitterly enviable. She was young, and determined to spread youthful optimism at every opportunity. Ritsuko tamped that down quickly but it kept spilling out between shifts or during lulls in operations. At least she never questioned her on the clock.

One day she stumbled onto Maya and Hyuga on break at their command posts, crowded around his terminal watching an online video of two kittens pouncing on bubbles from a bubble machine.

"Aw," Maya pouted cutely at the end, "I wish I could get a cat."

"Why don't you?" he asked.

"With the hours I keep? I'd barely see it. I couldn't keep it locked in my tiny apartment, all alone. That would be cruel."

Ritsuko wanted to punch Maya in the face.

Sometimes days would pass before she saw Isaac. He always reacted the same when she walked through the front door, stretching across the couch he wasn't allowed on and meowing for fresh food, having grown sick of the automated feeder. He never punished her for absences. She could be gone for half a week or shower him with love all day and he'd still treat her with the same schizophrenic feline affection he possessed his entire life. Some nights he curled up against her ankles in bed and she knew it was a treat. Others he spent thrown over his pillow in the living room. Either way she loved him and knew he loved her, even if they both could not always readily demonstrate it.

She knew keeping the relationship solely on her time was selfish, but she was busy. She was an adult sciencing biological gods. He was a cat. He'd get over it.

/\/\/\/\

It was three years into her tenure at NERV before she mentioned she had a cat to Gendo. He was dismissive as ever of personal traits and human compassion.

The Commander was not an animal person. Pet ownership was "irrelevant." The Commander could be a dick sometimes.

Misato joked since their college days about her feline chastity belt. Cats were man repellant. Old Spinster Akagi was still invited to parties by grace of her continued association with "Full Keg Katsuragi" but the boys kept their distance. That was fine. She wasn't interested in blowing off classes for a week in the arms of the first chain-smoking lothario that caught her eye. She didn't need someone else to make her feel like an adult. The crushing stress of her workload was enough.

There was a disconnected sense of accomplishment in her relationship with Gendo. His wife was gone, her mother was gone, she remained. Even if he sponsored full meals with Rei and never had as much as a piece of gum in Ritsuko's presence, she was okay with that. She would never be his great love, the woman who turned him towards the unreachable ideal. But she was his final love and that was something no one could take from her.

She looked over the edge of her wine glass. It was late, her apartment was dark. Isaac approached the couch.

"You're the only man I really need," she told her cat as he ambled by her left leg. Even if he was getting a little chunky. She bent to scratch his ears as he passed and his crooked tail lifted in satisfaction.

Ritsuko glanced at where he left. There was a puddle of urine outside the clean litter box.

/\/\/\/\

It started with missing the litter box. He still acted fine besides that. She'd be on hands and knees scrubbing the floor and Isaac would watch her in tired bemusement for a few moments before meowing for more food.

Ritsuko tried keeping multiple boxes in various rooms. He still missed. She changed the litter more frequently. He still missed. She was ready to wrap every flat surface in plastic.

One night she happened to spend in her apartment Isaac woke her at 4:43 in the morning, howling like he was being killed. She bolted out of bed to find him by the kitchen table, dropping a bloody bowel movement. Ritsuko postponed a MAGI check-up to go to the vet.

The veterinarian was a large woman with dark eyes. She spoke quietly and moved with deliberate purpose. She reminded Ritsuko of her Grandma.

She diagnosed Isaac with megacolon and began treatment with cisapride. When that didn't work, she also prescribed lactulose. When that didn't work, she suggested a generic human stool softener bought over the counter.

All of the medications necessitated outside help. The cost was negligible for her, but multiple daily dosages were impossible given her duties saving the human race from extinction. Ritsuko refused to work intimately with anyone else who had access to her apartment and settled on a young Section agent on her own detail. If Gendo knew he didn't care.

Isaac was a good medicine taker. They didn't have to wrap him in a towel or chase him around the apartment. Bribery with treats was enough to endure even the ickiest tasting medication.

Sometimes the agent would miss with the oral syringe, sometimes Isaac would gag and vomit. Small patches of dried medicine on his fur became mats. The agent did not brush him or play with him because he was not ordered to. He held a firmly neutral position on pets, neither hating cats nor adoring them. Ritsuko didn't want someone younger stealing away Isaac's affection, certainly not by a person she introduced to him out of necessity. He belonged to her.

/\/\/\/\

Ritsuko noticed Isaac's left hind leg splay out as he bent to drink water. She wasn't concerned. A routine visit to the vet's office months ago concluded Isaac was getting more arthritic, and he showed it. His mobility was reduced, he walked slower, he needed a stepstool to hop onto anything higher than two feet.

He also lost weight, but he was an old cat. Nothing unexpected. And he still came trotting with surprising speed when she offered a can of wet food or shook a bag of treats. She figured a splayed leg here and there was just him trying to get comfortable.

It was Friday when Ritsuko received a rare message from the young Section agent: _Isaac moving strange. Investigate?_

She shifted around her schedule, dumping Maya and her assistants with some busywork on a future project and slipped out of NERV. She found Isaac on the bathroom floor mat, staring into space. It was his new hangout. She didn't think much of it. Cats could be weird.

Ritsuko called to him. He blinked and looked up at her with a tired patience. He did not move. She pet him gently, tossed a toy across the living room; he did not move. She relented and opened a new can of food. Although his appetite appeared voracious as ever he refused to eat from old cans. It was only upsetting as a strange new behavior and for monopolizing her refrigerator space.

She spread the new food on a small paper plate and waved it under his nose. Isaac perked up and rose. Both back legs immediately splayed wildly, like he was wearing roller skates. His left front paw was curled into an unusable hook, using the wrist to maneuver. He hobbled and slid to the plate and eagerly ate. Ritsuko stayed crouched by his side. She carefully patted his back, feeling bony vertebrae under thin fur.

She called the vet. The vet took x-rays with an air of finality. The diagnosis was spondylosis deformans. Ritsuko felt ill from the name alone without knowing the exact condition.

"Basically," the vet explained, "his spine is disintegrating. His brain doesn't know where his limbs are. That's why he's walking like he's drunk."

The vet was a cat person. She did not make light of the situation or provoke a resolution with emotionless medical jargon. She was visibly more upset. It made it easier for Ritsuko to keep control. She asked for options.

"Given his age and other conditions…" The vet smiled. "You've given him a wonderful, long life. Far beyond what's expected for any other cat with his problems."

The disintegration would only get worse, and more painful. Isaac could not clean himself anymore, or climb into the litter box. He did not play, or purr, or hold his crooked tail up. He had no quality of life. It felt too sudden, and Ritsuko realized the Section agent probably spent more time with Isaac than she did over the past few years.

She wanted to scream at the agent. Why didn't he watch Isaac better? Why didn't he warn her sooner? What the hell was she paying him for? The urge to strike someone was stunning.

She forced herself to calm down. The head of Project E throwing a fit in a local veterinarian's office wouldn't solve anything.

"We can keep him here," the vet said gently. "Or we can take him to your home. We want to make him as comfortable as possible."

"Home," Ritsuko bit out.

"Okay. Good. If you have any family you'd like to invite, please do."

The vet wanted to create a warm, open environment surrounded by loved ones. A place without judgment or guilt, where Isaac would be happiest before the vet killed him.

It was the most rational option. Ritsuko looked down at Isaac on the exam table, scared and moving his limbs in an ineffectual desire for escape.

Screw rationality.

"Give me a day," she told the vet.

/\/\/\/\

"Thank you for agreeing to this," Ritsuko said.

"Why ask me?" Kaji said. "Why not Ibuki or Katsuragi?"

"Misato, despite owning that bizarre bird, has no patience for other people's pets. And the less Maya knows about my private life the better."

"How about one of the Children? Shinji's a sensitive lad."

"I'd like to conduct this without any tears, thanks."

"It might have been good for Asuka."

"I won't be a guinea pig in your experiment to teach that girl empathy."

Neither mentioned Rei.

"Besides," Ritsuko said, "you have access to a shovel."

"No gardening equipment in that lab of yours?" He suddenly frowned. "Uh, how did you know I'd have a shovel?"

"You honestly thought growing melons under the Geofront roof would go unnoticed?"

They sped through the city in his convertible. It was an exceedingly expensive way to look good in traffic jams. Kaji was no gear head but possessed a refined taste in automobiles. His appreciation rubbed off on Misato, who still subscribed to several car-related magazines.

To Ritsuko cars were a means to get from point A to point B. As long as it worked as advertised she didn't care how it looked. Owning one was pointless; the city was centrally located with a competent public transportation system, and there were always Section rides to commandeer. For Misato it was a form of therapy and connection to the past. For Kaji it fit into his persona while doubling as a fast way out of Tokyo-3 to perform for his various allegiances.

"I was unaware you were watching my movements so closely." He had the uncanny ability to turn anything he said into an obscene sexual innuendo. His "My uncle died" became slang for oral within their group at college.

"Can you at least pretend you care about my dead cat?" Ritsuko complained. She held a large shoebox on her lap.

"Should I have worn black?"

He almost sounded genuine. She wasn't sure. "Don't be absurd."

They drove into the hills surrounding the city, to a place beyond the shining cacophony of retractable weapon buildings and paved roads. She told him to park by an abandoned bus stop and he did. He produced a shovel from his trunk. They walked through knee-high grass to a knoll shadowed by a cliff. A cluster of trees sat to the left. The only sound was cicadas chirping beneath the hazy noonday sun. Ritsuko thought it felt enough like Grandma's house.

Kaji dug a rectangular hole four feet deep. He leaned on the shovel's handle sweating. She carefully lowered the shoebox in.

"Goodbye, Sir Isaac Mewton." Ritsuko shot an annoyed glare at Kaji's surprised hum of amusement. She sighed. "You were a good cat."

"That's it?" he asked as she rose and dusted herself off.

"Did you expect some grand eulogy? Go talk to the Sub-Commander. I was never one for speeches."

He began shoveling earth into the hole. "Granted, but he was your cat from a ways back, right?"

"This is not a surprise. He was almost eighteen. Besides, I still have work to do today. I can sacrifice a lunch break for this but the world won't stop because my pet died."

Kaji paused.

"Tired so soon?" she chided.

"Do you want to finish?" He held the shovel handle towards her.

She wanted to snort at his sudden sentiment. Why couldn't he act this serious at least half the time?

Ritsuko looked down at the grave, nothing but a shallow footstep. It was already nearly full. She could not see any trace of the shoebox.

She took the shovel without a word.

/\/\/\/\

"I'm home."

That was a lie. Her office at NERV felt more like home. It held all the expected amenities, she had access to everything she wanted or needed. She did not belong in this apartment.

Three days passed since the burial. Ritsuko genuinely forgot about it by the end of the first, absorbed in untangling a data error following the Children's most recent synch test. Hours blurred together as she meticulously scanned lines of code and gently prompted the MAGI to rewrite the initial miscalculation. Her personal life was a memory of a memory until late into day three when Misato cornered her in the hall and offered a "sorry your cat died." She sounded like a poorly written sympathy card. Ritsuko should have known Kaji would spill the beans. He seemed pathologically averse to secrets.

After declining an offer to raise something alcoholic in tribute, Ritsuko punched out of NERV and took the train back to the apartment. She sat on the couch and let her phone accumulate messages. The living room was dark, shadows running from the dim lamp by the armrest. Tired hands ran over tired eyes.

She tapped her phone and idly began sorting the new messages into degrees of crisis severity, making sure the world would not end before she showered and lay down for four hours. Maybe three hours.

A shadow caught her eye and she turned without thinking. She was surprised it took Isaac this long to bother her for fresh food.

She stared. It was not Isaac's thin, bent tail approaching her, but the shadow of a stray lab coat sleeve, hanging crooked over the back of a chair in her bedroom. Isaac was gone.

His automatic feeder and water dish were full and untouched. Neglected cat toys littered the floor. Brushes and scissors to weed out his mats were on a small end table. The apartment still smelled like him.

Isaac was gone. There was no reason to be here anymore. Ritsuko never truly felt like she belonged.

She looked at the empty cushion beside her. The couch was plush and expensive, a rare indulgence. Forbidding Isaac from it didn't last long. She wasn't present to enforce the rules and he knew comfort when he saw it. A thick coat of shed hair lined the cushion he claimed.

This was where the vet ended his life. Ritsuko held him, all fur and bones, as a powerful, paralyzing sedative forced a limp relaxation. His breathing slowed and he wilted in absolute compliance, his eyes wide and unfocused. The vet assured her he would not feel any pain. She waited for the okay to continue.

Ritsuko cradled his body. She scratched his ears. She nodded.

The barbiturate overdose was fast. His breathing was so shallow Ritsuko could not tell when he passed.

The vet left with quiet tears. She was the only one to cry. Ritsuko wrapped Isaac in a bed sheet and found a shoebox from an old pair of boots. She called Kaji.

Ritsuko passed her hand over Isaac's cushion. She came away with short stands of hair. She stared at her palm and the pair of small blisters she acquired from shoveling. She closed her hand.

She knew it was okay to cry. She knew that when her father died, when her mother died, when half the world died. It was a weakness she stubbornly refused to acknowledge. She never handled death well, always getting trapped somewhere between the anger and denial stages. Death was the ultimate invalidation of her work. She held sway over the technology of God yet was powerless to save one tiny cat.

Ritsuko cradled her balled fist. She bent over it in the dark, empty apartment and thought of Isaac. The tears did not come.

/\/\/\/\

End

Author notes: Writing as free therapy, yay!


End file.
